So have some neighbors (house not mansion) who don’t through away garbage correctly. They just mix everything together. At one point it was mixing PET bottles with sauce bottles, which isn’t terrible, but now they have been throwing away cans, PET bottles, cartons and 燃えるごみ all in the same bag…..it doesn’t get collected. Stinks and now that it’s getting hotter will only get worse.
It’s driving us all crazy that live on the same ‘estate’ / 分譲住宅.
All other neighbors are passive. Just complain but don’t do anything (all Japanese families) and the garbage people are a Vietnamese couple with some ‘students’ staying with them to study Japanese language.
My wife and I have confronted them (nicely) and they have admitted that it’s their garbage and blame the students that they don’t know how to do properly.
They said they would fix it. But just yesterday, same thing. All mixed together, cans, PET and 燃えるごみ. We took picture and asked them to sort out to which the main lady says:
“the garbage company will sort it out”
Obviously they did not and it’s still there…..
Clearly the couple don’t know how to throw away garbage either so clearly can’t teach the students. We have provided links to the wards website that explain how to throw away, also have found resources in Vietnamese too.
Has anyone else had similar problems? Or any advice?
We will continue to press them but it is very annoying, time consuming and a mental drain.
There are our literal neighbors. They’re not bad people. We like them, and we are in good terms. But it’s just their understanding about garbage is not there. They have lived in Japan for a long time, working and speak of Japanese…..
Not sure if it’s a culture thing and our communication style isn’t right. Any help would be appreciated.
5 comments
What happens to the garbage that isn’t collected? Is there just a growing midden heap that gets added to every week?
They definitely understand, they just can’t be bothered doing it properly. Some people are just assholes.
Bring the uncollected bag back to their frontdoor. Everytime.
We had a similar issue but it never really got resolved. Nepali couple with a baby. They were leaving all sorts of trash out on the wrong days and it piled up. Found out they couldn’t speak Japanese, told the landlord and he put posters up in English. Turns out they couldn’t understand them either.
In the end though I just think they just didn’t have any standards. The guy was sometimes outside in the parking area smoking with his kid sat right next to him.
You sound like you want the problem to be fixed more than wanting them to get in trouble if possible, so if you haven’t maybe try talking with one of the students instead of the owners? If you have got the trash sorting info in Vietnamese maybe also print up a simple google translated bit about how the garbage won’t be collected if not sorted properly, and that if it continues some of the neighbors might call the police. Even if it doesn’t work, at that point you’ve tried your best to be sure they know what’s expected, and if they decide they’d rather take the risk of eventually dealing with the police that’s their own choice.